Five things you should know about a supermoon

Posted on 14 November 2016

The University of York’s Astronomy and Space Science Outreach Support Officer, Adam Shore, outlines the top five things we should know about the November 2016 supermoon.

1. The orbit of the moon around the Earth is elliptical rather than a perfect circle. This means that the moon isn't a constant distance away from us, but instead gets closer or further away as time goes on.

2. A supermoon is as the name suggests - it appears larger and brighter in the sky because it is closest to the Earth during a full moon.

3. Supermoons happen fairly regularly, but tonight (Monday, 14 November) the moon will appear larger than it has since 1948.

4. The supermoon will appear to be about 7% larger and 16% brighter than an average full moon.

5. The next time a full moon will be this close to earth will be in 2034.